I signed up for an Ironman when I could barely swim a length of the pool. The race required 3.8km in open water, which is a long way to fake it.
So I got a coach. I got lessons. And I was terrible. A grown man floundering in the shallow end while teenagers cruised past. I felt like a fool.
Guess what? I got better.
Same story with this newsletter. I was scared to hit publish. Same with the podcast. I was scared to ask people to be guests. In every case the unlock was the same: being willing to be a beginner again. There was no other option. As author Ryan Holiday puts it, the obstacle is the way.
The trap explained
Being good at something can be a trap, and it’s difficult to spot and harder to escape. You’ve spent years, decades even, working and studying to become good at your thing. Great, maybe. You’ve invested so much in that competence that appearing anything less feels like a threat to your very core.
So you quietly stop doing things you might be bad at. Which, when you think about it, is most things. You may not even notice it happening.
Competence is a comfort zone that can slow growth.
Why it gets harder as we get older
Two reasons.
The first is the fear above. The more senior you get, the further the fall from expert to beginner feels, and the more people you imagine watching you land.
The second is elasticity. Stepping outside your comfort zone is a muscle. Work it and it strengthens. Ignore it and it stiffens. Most of us, without noticing, stop giving it anything to do. Same job, same routes, same restaurants, same opinions. Every year the list of things that feel “not for me” quietly grows. Not because you can’t. Because you’re out of practice at being new at things.
Feeling uncomfortable? Good.
A sure sign you’re doing the right thing is feeling uncomfortable.
Not the dread that tells you something is actually wrong. The awkward, slightly embarrassed, “I don’t fully know what I’m doing” kind. That’s not a warning light. That’s the muscle working again.
Jane Dent told me on the podcast that after a career spanning broadcasting, the All Blacks and academia, she still wrestles with imposter syndrome. Still feels she made it up as she went along. Her mantra, borrowed from an old boss: fake it till you make it. The feeling never fully leaves. You just stop letting it vote.
Discomfort isn’t a warning light. It’s the green light to carry on.
The big surprise
Here’s the bit nobody tells you: people want you to succeed.
Set out on something new, a career, a business, a ridiculous mid-life triathlon, and people will go out of their way to help. My swim coach never once made me feel like the slowest person in the pool, which I was. The podcast guests I nervously approached said yes, and then some of them suggested other guests.
We assume the world is watching, waiting for us to fail. It isn’t. Mostly it isn’t watching at all, and when it does notice, it tends to cheer. Something about seeing a person have an honest crack brings out the best in people.
All you have to do is ask. That’s the whole trick. The competent version of you hates asking, because asking admits you don’t know. Ask anyway.
Try this
Write down the last time you were a proper beginner at something. Not new-project-at-work new. Bad at it, no idea, might-embarrass-yourself new.
If you can’t remember, that’s the trap, sprung.
Then pick one small thing to be bad at this month, and tell one person you’re doing it. The telling matters. It gets you past the looking-foolish part, and there’s a decent chance they’ll offer to help.
Wrap it all up
Competence is a real achievement. You earned it.
But somewhere along the way it stops being a reward and starts being a cage.
The trap isn’t being good at something.
It’s never being willing to be bad at anything again.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
— Anaïs Nin
I didn’t think I wanted to read about competence but it was really positive! You write well.